From COVID-19 to monkeypox, US governance shows little progress

A Westchester Medical Center worker applies a monkeypox vaccine to a person at a drive-through monkeypox vaccination center on July 28, 2022 at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, New York, United States. Photo: IC

In some ways, the monkeypox outbreak in the United States appears to be repeating the COVID-19 experience. Less than a week ago, Europe was the epicenter of the virus, but now the US is witnessing the world’s highest number of monkeypox cases. Desperation can be felt among some US experts. “Monkeypox poised to be the next public health failure,” headlines Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, in the New York Times on Saturday.

“Our country’s response to monkeypox has been plagued by the same shortcomings as with COVID-19,” Gottlieb wrote. He later explained that the virus had not been detected in time. Yet even after the disease became an epidemic, the US again failed to bring it under control because of “failure to coordinate federal agencies” and the US common reflex — political leadership “for poor planning, lack of Urgency and clumsy execution.”

These all point in one direction – the dysfunctional political system. Because of such a system, whenever a crisis arises, when American politicians are called upon to unite and confront their common enemy, they are only concerned with fighting one another. No one can mobilize the country’s resources to achieve an agreed goal. In the end, the US is not only incapable of solving the problems, but actually making them worse.

One of the results of systemic dysfunction is America’s addiction to scapegoating and diverting public attention. At press time, the US has reported more than 91.3 million COVID-19 cases, nearly 1.03 million deaths, and nearly 5,200 people who have been diagnosed with monkeypox. Meanwhile, the US is discussing and planning to spend $52 billion in chip financing, a $45 billion increase in the US defense budget, or a total of $858 billion in total US military spending. The money should be better spent serving the health of Americans. Instead, they could all be busy containing imaginary US enemies in other parts of the world.

When politicians feel unable to face challenges, they selfishly choose the easy way instead of doing the right thing, Shen Yi, a professor at Fudan University, told the Global Times. Over time, the US gradually slipped into a state of insanity – all they are aware of is fighting against something instead of fighting for something. It has lost its original purpose.

In his article, Gottlieb noted that the monkeypox outbreak was “so preventable.” The US still failed the test, far from matching the country’s resources, status and perceptions of the country. Now America’s own problems are coming back to haunt the country. Monkeypox might just be a start. Worse, the American people may not be the only victims.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of global governance. She made it clear that a global crisis cannot be solved by one country alone. Unfortunately, the US, the dominant actor in world government, invests heavily and constantly in guns and wars while at the same time showing incompetence in saving people.

The US-led global governance mechanism, which was reinforced after the end of the Cold War and in which people are fooled into believing that Western countries can always offer high-quality global public goods and a governance model, no longer works. The reason has been revealed from the COVID-19 epidemic to the monkeypox outbreak — the US’s own incompetence and decline, Shen said.

If the US fails to meet the challenges and even drags the world into the abyss, calls will mount to ask those with more skills, willing and resources to take the lead in global governance, Shen noted.

A few days ago it was reported that a man from California was infected with both COVID-19 and monkeypox at the same time. An American expert said, “It’s just unbelievably bad luck.” The California patient may be the first case, but it certainly won’t be the last. Will the US ever learn the lesson? The answer will reveal whether “unbelievable bad luck” will become a portrayal of America’s future destiny.